


Cave in

by Salty_but_Sweet



Series: Humanity [1]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Obscure time and date, One Shot, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 17:05:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salty_but_Sweet/pseuds/Salty_but_Sweet
Summary: If you just want to read MCxC fic without overthinking and overexplaining rant, go ahead and skip the text below.I ended up looking again at my Halo drafts thanks to a fanfiction . net review. This one-shot, however, came to me few nights ago when trying to fall asleep. Years ago, I had an idea to write a companion piece/sequel to Buried, but it... Actually, I can't even remember what happened to it. Whoops! Anyway, Buried is a figurative piece about John and Cortana's humanity around Halo 2/3. Writing similar to Halo 4 with one of the characters dead, hmmm, not really that tempting. And Halo 5, yeah... Halo 5. But it seems that when you throw a question at your brain, it might actually give you answers few years later. So, here is my figurative take on John and Cortana's humanity around/after Halo 5.I absolutely love these fics that write themselves!Disclaimer: Halo belongs to Bungie and 343i.





	Cave in

**Author's Note:**

> If you just want to read MCxC fic without overthinking and overexplaining rant, go ahead and skip the text below.
> 
> I ended up looking again at my Halo drafts thanks to a fanfiction . net review. This one-shot, however, came to me few nights ago when trying to fall asleep. Years ago, I had an idea to write a companion piece/sequel to Buried, but it... Actually, I can't even remember what happened to it. Whoops! Anyway, Buried is a figurative piece about John and Cortana's humanity around Halo 2/3. Writing similar to Halo 4 with one of the characters dead, hmmm, not really that tempting. And Halo 5, yeah... Halo 5. But it seems that when you throw a question at your brain, it might actually give you answers few years later. So, here is my figurative take on John and Cortana's humanity around/after Halo 5.
> 
> I absolutely love these fics that write themselves!
> 
> Disclaimer: Halo belongs to Bungie and 343i.

It was dark.

Not necessarily cold, but there was no feeling of warmth.

An abandoned place without life.

John got up from the thin bed, pushing himself up with his right hand.

Everything was grey.

The door to the tiny room was slightly ajar and he drew it open with only small trepidation.

The room opened to a long hallway, there were large industrial windows facing a yard he didn’t see in the gloomy greyness. Similar rooms lined up the hallway, each door open and the interior in pieces. Beds, medical equipment, chairs on the hallway, all smashed to heaps of irremediable shreds of wood, twisted pieces of plastic and metal. Even the walls decorated missing bricks and scuffed-up white paint.

The hallway felt longer than it actually was thanks to his deliberate steps and supervision over the state of the damage.

Someone was crying or shouting in the opposite end of the hallway but he didn’t pay attention to the voice.

The broken fire-doors at the end of the hallway let him into the hall. What used to be a reception desk to his left, rows of broken chairs on the middle, a bed and torn strait jackets on the other end of the hall.

His measured steps echoed in the room.

Nothing here really surprised him; he knew the place to the core.

He walked closer to the person sitting on the long table near the front doors.

He had known from the minute he got up that he would find Cortana in here, and maybe only her.

She was sitting her other knee drawn, bored, and taking in his appearance in his off-duty clothes with an unceremonious snap of fingers.

A fluorescent lamp on the ceiling exploded a little bit further from them.

Neither paid any clear interest to the sparks and falling down bits of the ceiling apart from a passing glance at the destruction.

“Come on.”

Cortana was pulling him out of the building. She was already outside on the grey, blank scenery, her right hand extended towards him.

She seemed partially exasperated, partially neutral while waiting for him to follow.

But he couldn’t follow.

The handcuff that joined her right hand to his left was solid. John wasn’t even sure whether it could be broken, or whether Cortana’s wrist would snap first.

“I can’t.”

His words were a statement in their own right.

There was something, an invisible force holding him back despite the fire and destruction that loomed behind him.

It wasn’t an act of heroism or cowardice fear against the unknown; it was a law of nature.

Cortana stared at him for a moment as if trying to decipher his thoughts. She sighed before stepping closer, brushing against his figure, before leaning forward with her left hand stretched out.

John turned to look at what Cortana was aiming at.

Cortana highlighted her grip on the other pair of handcuffs that linked John’s right hand to the metallic vertical door pull.

_It wasn’t secured on the middle bar._

_It was retained around the open top bar._

Still leaned against him and reaching behind him, Cortana raised the other cuff off the bar, held it in the air to emphasize the point and finally letting it hang free.

John just surveyed her, his face not giving any indication of his thoughts.

“Now?”

They walked down the path from the mental asylum.

The trail circled down the hill, the gravel gritting under their feet.

Everything was grey, and the whole place was as empty as the building had been.

John had no idea how long they walked around, Cortana walking in front, but not solely taking the direction.

Eventually, they stopped on a deserted, narrow, asphalt road amidst fields that opened the scenery for miles and miles.

There was a small breeze, and the cloudiness was receding enough that the lines of individual grey clouds could be spotted.

Cortana turned to look at him, before twirling her right wrist.

Their scenery changed into a grass opening.

There were colors now, but they weren’t vivid colors from an area where the sun shines vertically to the ground, but more subdued, lifeless, minimalistic.

And the place was still empty, save for them.

There was a hint of Reach in their surroundings; enough stimuli to provoke the memories in his mind, but still, the essence of the place evaded him.

John knew it was unreal in the sense but the fact mattered less than it would have before.

Cortana sat down on the grass with her knees drawn, taking in the scenery.

John looked at the trees around the opening. There was a distant sound of birds singing, but it seemed to come from so far away that he wasn’t sure whether it was produced by his own mind.

He dragged the broad door after him with his grip on the handcuffs' chain.

Cortana looked at him while leaning her head on her arms and knees, her bare toes just reaching the water in the small lake in front of them.

As if it had been his plan all along, John took the fishing rod next to him and threw the bait into the water.

Cortana watched him with amusement, not saying a word but the merriment was becoming more and more evident on her face.

It was catching and soon John felt a smile tug on his mouth, despite the fact that he didn’t know on what Cortana was actually laughing about.

The situation went on and on with Cortana trying to contain her laughter and John having no lucj with the fishing.

Finally, Cortana rolled her eyes good-naturedly and twirled her right hand, a nice-sized fish appearing on it.

Cortana turned the scaly fish on her hand, regarding it.

Approving her catch, she turned fish into a living white chicken, letting it free on the grass behind them.

John watched Cortana, a herd of chickens scraping the land behind them, walking randomly with an occasional cackle.

Cortana showed him her hand, trying to make him imitate her movement.

John looked behind them, “I don’t want a chicken.”

Cortana laughed full-heartedly, “It can be anything you want.”

He carried some doubt, but extended his hand, trying to feel whatever he was supposed to feel.


End file.
